Identifying Acoustical Material

A

adam79

New member
I lucked out big time the other night and found a decent amount of what seems to be acoustical treatment material. I took a couple pictures of the stuff in hopes that someone might recognize what it is and what it's used for.





You can't really tell by the photo, but the inside is a hot pink colored material.

Thanks,
Adam
 
It is, in fact, carpet padding.
And yes, you could do a 70s style wall treatment. It is quite effective in certain spaces but it gives many fashion-boys the all over fidgets.

Use it if you have a need for it. That stuff isn't cheap these days.


Ponder 5
 
Ponder5 said:
That stuff isn't cheap these days.
Click to expand...

True, the cheap carpet padding is just foam, no vinyl/outer layer. If you've got more than 12 sq yds of it, you can probably sell it to someone redoing a living room and then use that money for bass traps.
 
I posted these pictures on another forum and everyone there said it was insulation, with absolutley no absorbtion qualities. They said blakets would be more effective. I guess the only way to find out is to hang it up and listen. Hopefully it's not a total wash and end up in the trash.
 
Everything has SOME kind of absorption qualities and it's ridiculous that they would say such a thing.

Even glass has absorption qualities. It only depends on your needs.

But then, right now especially, the whole arena of sound treatment is awash with dogma and fashion. In the 50s, it was all about large bass traps. By the 70s, it was all about being super dead. By the 80s, it was all about foam. Here we are full circle. And YET, great music has been recorded in all of those environments and many more.

It is the height of ego to proclaim doom upon a room that hasn't been auditioned. Materials are pretty well known, but it takes a lot of data to process the exact characteristics of a room.

All that said, it's probably a slightly safer bet to layer that stuff with something else. That is, in an "ordinary" room of "ordinary" shape and proportion monitoring "ordinary" music, the vinyl coating will probably be more reflective than you'd prefer. The pad part will still do its job in its limited bandwidth. So layering it with another material, yes, even shag carpet, would probably be more to your liking and would provide a more noticeable deadening effect.


Ponder5
 
Insulated, yes. So technically, insulation of a sort. As far as I can tell from the photos, it looks like carpet padding specifically for slab installation -- where you want a good amount of padding and extra insulation from the concrete (which can change temps pretty dramatically from season to season). The texture allows air and moisture to spread out. Like a tire tread.

Absorptive qualities? Just about everything has some to some extent. But likely not what you're looking for. That said, the mass alone would probably give *some sort* of effect if it was hung against (well, maybe 2" off) a wall. Whether it's actually effective against whatever you're up against is another story.
 
If you cover up all the walls with that...see if you can find an old-style straight-jacket, and then hang it by the door of your studio space.
The straight-jacket and the white padded room will surely make people pause before entering. :D
 
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